Rob Goossens had been hoping for a job at RTL Boulevard for years when he actually started there three and a half years ago. “Yes, I had really thought of it that way.”
Rob Goossens’ TV career started in January 2019, when he started working as one of the experts in the quickly flopped 6 Inside. This program with Albert Verlinde and Jan Versteegh was supposed to shake up the TV evening, but was already taken off the tube by SBS 6 after a few months.
Ever at Boulevard
Rob was also working as a media journalist for De Telegraaf at the time. “I then thought of: well, I want to be at the desk at Boulevard on behalf of De Telegraaf one day,” he says in the podcast The Road To Success.
The interviewer on duty: “You really came up with that?”
Rob: “Yes. I had no idea at the time how I would ever end up at Boulevard, but I felt it was a measure of whether my mission as a media reporter would succeed. I think the largest newspaper in the country should just have a “major” media reporter. And it is also important that you are quoted in other media.”
‘Was in my head’
The most important media platform you can think of in the Netherlands is RTL Boulevard, says Rob. “Because there are 800,000 to a million viewers ready every day. So I had that in mind. And in the end we succeeded, but that was more luck than wisdom.”
Albert Verlinda himself strict Rob first for 6 Inside. Albert saw something in Rob after he had interviewed him for the newspaper. “So I had in my head like, well, don’t ask me how, but one day I’ll be at Boulevard. May be in five years, I think everything is fine, but one day I will be there. And then I thought: yes, I really have to think about this seriously.”
Waiting for chance
RTL Boulevard was a bit ‘collapsed’ at that time, according to Rob. “6 Inside started shaking up the cushions and Albert is of course an absolute icon in the entertainment field, and a real example for me. I thought: if you can work with the great Albert Verlinde, I can wait until my chance comes at Boulevard, but it just has to happen.”
The 6 Inside adventure was short-lived, but that’s how he came into the crosshairs of Boulevard. “At Boulevard they liked the riots I had with Albert on the air, so I was noticed by them thanks to 6 Inside. I was in contact with Luuk mainly via Twitter and I had already had coffee with Luuk once.”
‘Now it’s fun’
Luuk did his best for Rob. “He had already, but I think that was mainly hypothetical, said: ‘Shouldn’t you just come to Boulevard?’ So that was actually a bit in my head, like: someday I have to go to Boulevard.”
After a six-month cooling-off period after 6 Inside, Rob went to work for Boulevard. “I do not consider myself made for television, but I am original in my mind and that is where my great added value lies, I think for a program like Boulevard.”
Rob has now been working at Boulevard for three and a half years. “The tension has really remained for a year and a half. And in that year and a half I did 200 broadcasts or something. And only after that I started to get the feeling: now it’s fun.”
The Road To Success
The Path to Success podcast: